Hey Robert. Thanks so much for this post. Urchling and I are still at table having a leisurely Saturday breakfast. She's sketching and I'm reading.

This post is a teachable, so I read it aloud to her.

I get to through the first email and Urchling's eyebrow has shot up some. She's got a look: a kind of side eye look, but she's focusing on her sketch so it's all in her eyebrow. The look equals "that's weird". Urchling doesn't talk much when she's drawing, but her facial expressions become unguarded and speak volumes.

I get through your first email. Her face shifts. Now both brows are raised and her lips are pressed together. This is a look of approval. The look equals "He handled that well. Good for Robert."

I get through the third email. Urchling sighs. I look up at her again and her hand has stilled. She's squinting her eyes and her head has tilted. She's chewing on her upper lip. This is a look of confusion and pondering. Her lips purse. She taps her pencil on the paper two times.

She says, "That's.......strangely..............simpering(?). Is simpering the right word? But I see what he's doing!!! Not cool. Boundaries people."

Me: "Yeah, it is somewhat simpering language, isn't it? He's pretending like he didn't mean to intrude while in actuality he's checking for a way through the boundary. He's poking for holes. It's like he's literally standing outside a fence and actively looking for a way to squeeze through while telling the person inside they're not being breached."

Urchling; "heaven forbid he walk around and use the gate like everybody else."

Me :: nodding. I read your next sentence, the one about boundaries.

You get a thumbs up from Urchling, who has gone back to drawing, and nodding along occasionally through the end.

Very enjoyable and as I said, teachable.

Then I see that someone has left a comment. So I tap the bubble and head off to the comments section.

It's from Orwa. No way. Tell me....Oh man.

I read the comment aloud.

I bust out laughing. I'm shaking my head and pinching the bridge of my nose. Just laughing. Cause.....right? As soon as I saw the comment, I knew it was, most likely, coming, but still.

Urchling has plopped her pencil down in the seam of her sketch book, with some force I might add, and placed her hands on the table, palms down. Total. Deadpan. Her nostrils are slightly widened and she's slowly blinking in disbelief.

"For real? Did you just make that up? Are you pulling my leg?"

"No,no. That's what he wrote. I'm not that creative on the fly. You know that." I hold the phone out for her to see.

She looks and sees an Avatar labeled Orwa.

Big, heaving, eye rolling, teenage girl sigh of relational and sympathetic grievance.

She goes back to drawing again, still shaking her head and huffing here and again.

Then the muttering under her breath starts.

"Plain language. Very clear. What the...? Did it again anyhow! Simper around some more! Didn't work the first time, but HEY! That is no reason to NOT continue doing the SAME THING and expect a different result. Am I right? Oh wait.....Grrrrrrr- ugh"

Another grand mal eye roll.

I'm surprised her eyes didn't get stuck.

So. It appears you've gotten some notoriety as a feminist.

Congratulations. Nobody ever tells you in advance it comes with a varying degrees of the mentally indolent as well as trolls. So sorry about the incoming. Wish I could tell you that would be the only one.